Feeling Judged

You know, it's a burden,
always knowing that
people are watching,
counting, feeling,
making categories,
making judgements,
deciding who

you

are

based on
actions and words and
their own insights and intuition
of you. . .


Fuck them.



you are who you are.

Be true to yourself
and the One who made you.



Revel in that.


I guarantee you, shame will not follow.

Into the Wild

In a lot of ways, I miss where I was this time last year. I miss that little apartment on 75th street. I miss the guitars on the wall, the quaint bedroom that fit 2 pieces of furniture, the tiny kitchen, the blood red wall. In many ways, that apartment will be one of my favorites, one that symbolized freedom and security and Home. No place had felt like home since my childhood. No place has felt like home since. 

Perhaps it was because I was so broken when I first moved in. Maybe it's because I first went through Focus and came home to those crimson walls. I remember coming back after Focus II, curling up on that black clad sofa, not knowing how to answer the questions my roommate posed, feeling exposed and vulnerable and real. Going to see Hunger Games II and then coming home and it was Home. It was a safe place... a place for me to hash out my feelings and the future. A place to belong to. 

That place is gone. We painted over those blood-red walls. We took down the book shelves. We let the stain on the carpet go unattended. But I will not let that apartment define me. 

I will not let my workmates define me. 

Nor my new friends. 

Nor my family's expectations of me. 

I am my own person. 

And I want for myself what I want. 

My future is my own. 

On the dawn of 2015, that is what I'm learning. 

Looking upon the dawn of 2013, I had such specific, trivial plans set aside for myself. Hike the Grand Canyon. Learn guitar. Go skiing. Most of which I've accomplished in two short years. But, now, here's to the real future. Here's to what I really want. Here's to who I want to be. 

Here's to where God is going to lead me. 

Away from here, I see that now. 

Away from these comforts I've gained. 

Away from roommates. 

Away from friends. 

Into the wild, 

The unknown. 

You know what I'm going to say here: 

Bring it. 

bring it on.